Breadcrumbs

Brad Bartz and the Early Japanese Internet

1991 - IAC Online Established and connects Japan America Society of Southern California and the ACCJ in daily telephone data batch transfers
1992 - IAC Online Builds "BBS Rooms" for all major country Chambers of Commerce in Japan.
1992 - First online advertisement globally sold to Coca Cola Japan.
1993 - All English Media uploads to IAC Online (Yomiuri, Japan Times, Nikkei, Mainichi, Asahi and dozen more industry reports.
1993 - US Embassy installed direct phone line to IAC-Online to get data (Ask Mr. Bill Brooks)
1994 - First Meeting with JPNIC and Bartz
1994 - IAC sells advertising on 300,000 IBM Japan PC desktops with a working version of Netscape 1.0 and 5 megabit website featuring Budweiser, Polaroid, Asahi, and more. - First paid ads on a computer globally. (http://bartz.com/bradley/letsinternet/indexb.html)
1995 - JV between NTT PC Communications and IAC-Online for PPP
1996 - JV between Japan Telecom IAC-Online for PPP
1996 - IAC registers 106 .co.jp domains and gets blacklisted
1996 - Two weeks after IAC .co.jp registrations JPNIC bans foreigners
1997 - IAC fires and sells businesses and goes from 65 employees to 5 believers. NTT says "we love IAC, but JPNIC says we can't do business with you." and they canceled our JV.
1998 - IAC changes to Jmail.co.jp KK and launches free email service
1999 - Jmail grows to 250,000 users
2000 - .jp domain registrations denied to Jmail.
2000 - Bartz sell control and leaves Japan debt free but without his company
2001 - E. Keith Kirkham Commercial Attaché US Embassy Tokyo Sent letter to JPRS/JPNIC: see http://bartz.com/jprs/oto.htm
2003 - Jmail grows at 6,000 new users a day reaching 900,000 Japanese users. Blacklist impact on advertising impossible to overcome.
2004 - Bartz meets with Mr. X. at his offices in Tokyo. Mr. X. became a leading domain name registrar in Japan after I left Japan. Mr. X. told me of a meeting JPNIC/JPRS demanded of him in 2002. JPNIC/JPRS brought 5+ people to his small office. I remember as his office was indeed small and he was quite animated when he described the meeting. He said, "once we got everyone sat down the JPNIC representative said, 'are you affiliated with Brad Bartz?' I said no." He went on to tell me that he was quite surprised by this meeting. I too was surprised as it lends evidence to discrimination and retaliation by JPNIC against Bartz.
2004 - Prime Minister Koizumi's office apologizes to Bartz for JPNIC / JPRS blacklist. My notes are bad, but the commercial attache at the US Embassy also apologized and said, "we should have helped you…" when I met him that same week.
2004 - Bartz buys back Jmail with original founders
2009 - Bartz confirms blacklist "personal" from Mr. Maruyama who was then president of JPNIC. Confirmed in writing by Dr. Goto, current president of JPNIC. Dr. Goto of JPNIC has passed-the-buck to JPRS.jp as the new manager of the one-company-one-domain-name rule.
2012 - Bartz visits Keidanren in effort to be able to sell .co.jp domains.
2012 - Mr. Maruyama of JPNIC forced to retire two weeks later.
2017 - Bartz finds JPRS/JPNIC original rules out of their jurisdiction and pursues compliance advocacy